Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale Trilogy - remaster by Krome Studios

[LESS T_T]

 

[Infinitron]

Rescued from Burger's grasp: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/the-bards-tale-iv/posts/2188974

The Bard's Tale Trilogy Remasters Update
Finally, some long-awaited update news on the original trilogy remasters. As you may remember, when we did our original crowdfunding campaign, we were approached by Olde Skuul and told that they were working on a remasters project. Due entirely to your requests, we agreed to offer these remasters as bonus extras in addition to your backer rewards when they were done.

The project was a large one, and was taking longer than anyone was hoping for. After discussing the situation with Olde Skuul, we agreed to part ways on this. However, the entire inXile development team – from Brian on down – wanted to see this project realized for both the backers and for a new generation of players, so we undertook a search to find the right partner for this project. That journey led us to Krome Studios, and we could not be happier with the work that they are doing so far. It is my pleasure to introduce Lindsay Parmenter, Head of Development of Krome, to walk us through a little of what they have in store for you.

Lindsay Parmenter, Krome Studios Head of Development

The original Bard's Tale games hold a special place in our hearts - many of us here at Krome Studios, especially Design Lead James Podesta and myself, played the games back in the 80s and are also backers of Bard's Tale IV.

After some casual conversations with the inXile team, the opportunity came up to put something together that we think will be really great for the Trilogy remaster. Not only are we updating the games to work natively on modern systems, but we're also putting on a fresh coat of paint, to give a new generation of role-playing and dungeon-crawling fans an easier opportunity to experience these classic games.

As a short list, our goals for the Trilogy remaster are:

• Up-res the original art, but keep the art in theme with the originals (the original examples are from the Amiga version of Tales of the Unknown):

And obviously it wouldn't be much good doing an up-res of character and enemy images if we didn't animate them!

• Add in various audio throughout the games for attacks, spells, and more.
  
• Add some quality of life improvements, such as the automap, tooltip popups in the UI, etc.

It's fantastic to be able to share with you some of the work that we've been doing on The Bard's Tale Trilogy. We know everybody's been waiting a while for this, and we look forward to updating you all with the progress in the months ahead.

A collage of what to expect with the remastered Bard's Tale Trilogy

 

[norolim]

Why?

 

[felipepepe]

I don't mind the new art, as long as they remove all the new "jokes" Burguer was adding...

 

[tindrli]

i would play it .. does we know how it goes? any remote idea of release?

 

[Sacibengala]

Definitely something is lost from the original pixelated art, but I liked the new one, it is not offensive or disrespectful in my point of view. Can't wait to play it.

 

[tindrli]

Definitely something is lost from the original pixelated art, but I liked the new one, it is not offensive or disrespectful in my point of view. Can't wait to play it.

notthing is lost there. if you prefer old one grab it and play old one

 

[Big Wrangle]

As far as converting the pixels to vectors, this is probably the best result possible. I wonder if there is gonna be an option to switch back tot he original style.

 

[Darkzone]

What i ask myself is, if there are currently two BT1-3 modernisation versions underway, one Olde Burger and one Krome Studio ? Are this the same files that InXile has received from Olde Burger (Apple IIGs) or is this a retrieved Amiga versions?
The pictures are from Amiga version as it is mentioned in the Update.

 

[Morkar Left]

Sad to hear that Becky couldn't deliver :/

But I'm happy that the remasters are still a thing and I hope they fix the bugs from the original ones.

 

[felipepepe]

What i ask myself is, if there are currently two BT1-3 modernisation versions underway, one Olde Burger and one Krome Studio?

Fargo owns the games, so Burguer can't do anything with whatever she has. And I doubt their parting was amiable enough that she send her files, so this is probably something brand new. They're also promising more features then before, like tooltips.

 

[Darkzone]

What i ask myself is, if there are currently two BT1-3 modernisation versions underway, one Olde Burger and one Krome Studio?

Fargo owns the games, so Burguer can't do anything with whatever she has. And I doubt their parting was amiable enough that she send her files, so this is probably something brand new. They're also promising more features then before, like tooltips.

I thought that Burger has send them some "things" and then Burger stopped, because they didn't agreed beforehand on the formalities of payment.

 

[theSavant]

Tbh, I never played the old trilogy, tried to play the emulated versions, got eye cancer, a vomit attack, was annoyed by the clunky controls, deleted it, and I would have probably never bothered with it again - until I saw THIS....

Wow! It looks amazing! It looks lovely! It also exceeds my minimum expectations for "enjoyable" graphics. This changed the games from "not wanting to play at all" to "totally want to play them all". Giving this project to this game studio was probably the best thing that could happen to the old trilogy. And after seeing that, I also trust in them getting the controls and other things right.

Btw. it almost looks like they recreated everything from scratch in a different game engine?

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Looks like comic book crap tbh, not that I think Burger would ever have delivered anything playable.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Well, it looks like what they did to wasteland: up-res the pictures. And one of the main complaints was that it was not animated. So now they assure us the animations are in. And it looks somewhat like the monkey island 2 remaster. Its better than the blurred filter burger becky was using. I only hope you can play with the VGA original graphics.

 

[Grauken]

Tbh, I never played the old trilogy, tried to play the emulated versions, got eye cancer, a vomit attack, was annoyed by the clunky controls, deleted it, and I would have probably never bothered with it again - until I saw THIS....

Wow! It looks amazing! It looks lovely! It also exceeds my minimum expectations for "enjoyable" graphics. This changed the games from "not wanting to play at all" to "totally want to play them all". Giving this project to this game studio was probably the best thing that could happen to the old trilogy. And after seeing that, I also trust in them getting the controls and other things right.

Btw. it almost looks like they recreated everything from scratch in a different game engine?

Sorry, but no, this is eye cancer

I'm not saying I'm against upping graphic fidelity, but this cartoon style is the wrong approach (I actually surprised that they took the originals, copied them almost verbatim and still managed to make them look worse). Should have done something in the style of Dark Spire for the NDS, that would have been appropriate, this on the other hand is an offense against taste

 

[Grauken]

I'm also wondering who is actually the target audience for this. Most people who like these games will have no problem playing any of the original versions. On the other hand, even if they manage to get newer players, even the cartoony graphic can't hide the old-school gameplay below the surface and how many of them will abandon it once they realize it's not a modern game. Makes me also wonder how many players actually finished the updated Wasteland 1, instead of turning it on, playing for 10 minutes and then abandoning it forever.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

I'm also wondering who is actually the target audience for this. Most people who like these games will have no problem playing any of the original versions. On the other hand, even if they manage to get newer players, even the cartoony graphic can't hide the old-school gameplay below the surface and how many of them will abandon it once they realize it's not a modern game. Makes me also wonder how many players actually finished the updated Wasteland 1, instead of turning it on, playing for 10 minutes and then abandoning it forever.

Well, I never played them and to play it and have the ability to transfer parties is a nice thing for me. The PC versions have a EGA graphics that really hasn't aged well, specially since you have amiga and apple 2gs versions. But the PC is the best option to transfer characters, while it still has some bugs in the latter games. I guess BT3 for apple 2 can accept party transfer from apple 2gs BT2, but the game is even uglier than the EGA version.

But then again, that is all for nothing if the remastered versions come with the same or even other bugs.

 

[Grauken]

It's not the graphics that make or break the prospective players

 

[Lady_Error]

I'm also pleasently surprised by the tile graphics. Never played the original Bard's Tale more than 10 minutes, so I'm looking forward to this.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

It's not the graphics that make or break the prospective players

Well, I was talking about my selfish reaons. I do like the idea of these remasters because I won't have to deal with emulators or play different inconsistent versions. I was actually eager to play the PC version because at least it would be consistent, but i heard BT3 on PC is also bugged as hell.

 

[Grauken]

I just realized that the frame for the 3d gameplay window is the exact same frame as in the screenshots from the OldeSkul version, so I wonder if they got the artists from that one to work on this or there's some form of collaboration going on

 

[Shaewaroz]

I'm also pleasently surprised by the tile graphics. Never played the original Bard's Tale more than 10 minutes, so I'm looking forward to this.

I'm sorry, but this looks absolutely horrible. Did BT really need a cheap mobile port?

 

[Lady_Error]

Show us a cheap mobile game with similar 3D tile graphics. I'll wait.

 

[Shaewaroz]

Show us a cheap mobile game with similar 3D tile graphics. I'll wait.

LOL, I'm happy for you the tiles impress you so much.